Regex.Matches Method (String)
Updated: September 2010
Searches the specified input string for all occurrences of a regular expression.
Assembly: System (in System.dll)
Parameters
- input
- Type: System.String
The string to search for a match.
Return Value
Type: System.Text.RegularExpressions.MatchCollectionA collection of the Match objects found by the search. If no matches are found, the method returns an empty collection object.
| Exception | Condition |
|---|---|
| ArgumentNullException | input is null. |
The Matches method is similar to the Match method, except that it returns information about all the matches, instead of a single match, found in the input string. It is equivalent to the following code:
The collection includes only successful matches and terminates at the first unsuccessful match.
The regular expression pattern for which the Regex.Matches(String) method searches is defined by the call to one of the Regex class constructors. For more information about the elements that can form a regular expression pattern, see Regular Expression Language - Quick Reference.
The Matches method uses lazy evaluation to populate the returned MatchCollection object. Accessing such members of this collection as MatchCollection.Count and MatchCollection.CopyTo causes the collection to be populated immediately. To take advantage of lazy evaluation, you should iterate the collection by using a construct such as foreach in C# and For Each…Next in Visual Basic.
The following example uses the Matches(String) method to identify any words in a sentence that end in "es".
using System; using System.Text.RegularExpressions; public class Example { public static void Main() { string pattern = @"\b\w+es\b"; Regex rgx = new Regex(pattern); string sentence = "Who writes these notes?"; foreach (Match match in rgx.Matches(sentence)) Console.WriteLine("Found '{0}' at position {1}", match.Value, match.Index); } } // The example displays the following output: // Found 'writes' at position 4 // Found 'notes' at position 17
The regular expression pattern \b\w+es\b is defined as shown in the following table.
Pattern | Description |
|---|---|
\b | Begin the match at a word boundary. |
\w+ | Match one or more word characters. |
es | Match the literal string "es". |
\b | End the match at a word boundary. |
Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP SP2, Windows XP Media Center Edition, Windows XP Professional x64 Edition, Windows XP Starter Edition, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2000 SP4, Windows Millennium Edition, Windows 98, Windows CE, Windows Mobile for Smartphone, Windows Mobile for Pocket PC, Xbox 360, Zune
The .NET Framework and .NET Compact Framework do not support all versions of every platform. For a list of the supported versions, see .NET Framework System Requirements.